Deportations to Haiti resume

There’s a Spanish saying: llover sobre mojado (rough translation - raining where it’s already wet). Such a cliché applies to Haiti.

Haiti’s one of the most impoverished countries in the Americas and in the recent months the country has had to face additional troubles. A wave of summer storms and a food crisis have led to more misery and suffering in that Caribbean country.

As a humanitarian gesture the U.S. government placed a moratorium on deportations to Haiti three months ago. Starting this week, however, the suspension was removed and deportations have resumed.

''We determined that it was appropriate to resume based on the circumstances in Haiti,'' declared a U.S. immigration spokeswoman to the miamiherald.com. Yet leaders of the Haitian community in Florida denounced the measure based on the country’s ongoing humanitarian crisis. Meanwhile, some politicians have entered the fray and have called on the federal government to stop the deportations:

(Reps. Alcee Hastings and Robert Wexler)…took the opportunity to call for granting temporary protected status to Haitians in the United States. That designation, generally bestowed upon countries experiencing severe economic or political problems, allows noncitizens to live and work in the United States for a limited period of time.

“Haiti has long met the qualifications for TPS, and it is now more urgent than ever that the United States provide them with this much needed, long overdue, temporary assistance,” they said.

Image- Voice of America
Sources- The Latin Americanist, Voice of America, Palm Beach Post, AP, miamiherald.com